Labour MP Trevor Mallard said it clearly at the Helen Kelly memorial in Wellington – How could he have just accepted from Pike River managers that the mine was being run with utmost safety standards? He is not alone, of course, in wondering.

Historically worldwide mine workers have been put into precarious positions. But it has become necessary to imbed that into the ‘unspoken given’ part of discussion of the economy in order to promote growing inequality, corporate supremacy, intensive farming, racism, and other forms of exploitation. Why has there been such muted outcry from the populace of this country? This incident is a second(*) major sign that the country has drifted into a head lowered cringe at the prospect of confronting a changing world no longer based on exploitation.

The Pike River families who are refusing to give up on some sort of justice by picketing the mine this week are a sign that this cringe is not universal, only a majority.

(*NB. The other sign of this cringe is the desperate desire that the government do nothing significant about climate change.)